Awards: Moonrise Kingdom and Beasts of the Southern Wild take home Gotham’s top prizes

Tonight, November 26, the Gotham Independent Film Awards started off the slew of Film-Award ceremonies that are met with us this time of year. Many Oscarologists will tell you that these awards mean very little to the final race.

I agree, however there are two independent films currently trying to tunnel there way into the top 10. Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom. I still haven’t seen Beasts, but I was a huge fan of Moonrise Kingdom so I am glad the film got some attention, even if its win may have been an easy predict.

Here is a list of Tonight’s nominees and winners after the jump:

Best Feature

  • Bernie
  • The Loneliest Planet
  • The Master
  • Middle of Nowhere
  • * Moonrise Kingdom

Best Documentary

  • Detropia
  • * How to Survive a Plague
  • Marina Abramović: The Artist is Present
  • Room 237
  • The Waiting Room

Best Ensemble Performance

  • Bernie
  • Moonrise Kingdom
  • Safety Not Guaranteed
  • Silver Linings Playbook
  • * Your Sister’s Sister

Breakthrough Director

  • Zal Batmanglij, Sound of My Voice
  • Brian M. Cassidy and Melanie Shatzky, Francine
  • Jason Cortlund and Julia Halperin, Now
  • Antonio Méndez Esparza, Aquí y Allá
  • * Benh Zeitlin, Beasts of the Southern Wild 

Breakthrough Actor

  • Mike Birbiglia, Sleepwalk with Me
  • * Emayatzy Corinealdi, Middle of Nowhere
  • Thure Lindhardt, Keep the Lights On
  • Melanie Lynskey, Hello, I Must Be Going
  • Quvenzhané Wallis, Beasts of the Southern Wild

Best Film Not Playing at a Theater Near You

  • Kid-Thing
  • * An Oversimplification of Her Beauty
  • Red Flag
  • Sun Don’t Shine
  • Tiger Tail in Blue

So hopefully the victories for Beasts of the Southern Wild and Moonrise Kingdom will translate into more award attentiveness in future nominations. There are, however, a couple of other things to note about these.

One of the many Oscar front-running films Silver Linings Playbook (Which was not nominated for Best Feature) also lost the Best Ensemble award along with Moonrise Kingdom to Your Sister’s Sister. Both Moonrise and SLP have been predicted by many to make a dent in other awards, more so with the latter.

While Beasts of the Southern Wild did win big with the debut director and Benh Zeitlin gave a solid speech, one oof the actress front-runners young Quvenzhane Wallis didn’t get acknowledged and lost out to Emayatzy Corinealdi in Middle of Nowhere. 

Middle of Nowhere has had some pretty great reception, even while being a relatively unknown film. I feel surprised it didn’t upset Moonrise Kingdom for best feature considering its praise, it is also notable to see that Moonrise Kingdom beat The Master which is placed higher on the Oscar front-running list than Moonrise Kingdom.

Some fun stuff happening, can Moonrise Kingdom or Beasts of the Southern Wild make a dent in the very crowded Oscar race this year? Only time will tell.